OEM or Retail SSD for System Build

[milesc3]

I am on the verge of ordering a system and am curious if I order an Intel 320 SSD will it be the OEM version with a one year warranty or will it be the retail version with a five year warranty?

[PCC-Jon]

I checked the Intel 320 160GB units we have in stock, and they are OEM. We *can* get the retail unit for you, it would just take a few extra days while we ship it in, and it carries ~$20 price premium.

I looked up our reliability stats for all Intel SSDs, and found that we have thousands of Intel SSDs in the field. We've been selling them since late 2008 when they first launched. We've seen a 0.66% failure rate in the field, which is about as good as any computer component we've ever seen. Of the 0.66% that failed, half of them were first-gen X25-M drives (which makes sense). Of all the failures we've seen, 80% of them happened in the first year. I'm not 100% sure on my math here, but I believe that puts you at around a 0.066% chance of failure AFTER the first year (the time at which the retail unit would be needed to still be covered by Intel warranty). Of course, those numbers will change -- as more time passes, we will see more failures after the first year. 100 years from now, they'll probably have a 100% failure rate, right? But I feel pretty good about numbers going back to 2008.

If it were me, I wouldn't sweat it. In fact, now that I think of it, I have an OEM Intel SSD in my home PC, and my laptop!

[milesc3]

Thanks Jon! I agree, although curiosity was getting the best of me.